Foundations of structural geology / Основы структурной геологии

In the Preface to the first edition of this book, published in 1983, I explained my reasons for writing the book as follows.

There are already a number of excellent books covering the various aspects of Structural Geology. Among these are works by Hobbs, Means and Williams, Jaeger and Cook, Price, Ramsay, and Turner and Weiss, all of which I have used extensively in preparing this book and have listed therein as further reading. However, these textbooks are rather advanced for many students commencing the study of geology, and for many years I have been aware of the lack of a suitable elementary book which I could recommend to beginners. My purpose in writing this book, therefore, was to supplement existing textbooks by providing an introduction to the subject which will convey enough information over the whole field of structural geology to stimulate the reader’s interest and encourage further study of more advanced textbooks and scientific papers.’

In the intervening six years since these words were written, the demand for a short, inexpensive, and reasonably comprehensive elementary text¬ book has continued to be just as great.

The revised edition contains a number of completely new sections. Extensional and strike- slip tectonics, and terrane accretion, are dealt with for the first time, reflecting the tremendous growth of interest in these topics among structural geologists over the last few years. I have responded to pleas from Scandinavian colleagues to incorporate a section on stereograms (which forms the Appendix) and an introductory section on elementary geometry and basic concepts, so that the book can be used, if necessary, as the sole introductory text on structural geology. The new introductory section also contains definitions and explanations of a number of important stratigraphic and structural concepts that need to be understood in the early stages of learning structural geology from geological maps. It must be stressed, however, that geological map interpretation must be carried out as a complement to any theoretical treatment of the subject, in order to appreciate structure in three dimensions.

I have also made numerous corrections and improvements to the text and also to the illustrations, many of which have been replaced. In doing this, I have incorporated many helpful suggestions from colleagues and reviewers. In particular, I should like to thank Alan Wright of Birmingham University, who supplied a most helpful and detailed list of suggested improvements. I wish to re-iterate my indebtedness to Paula Haselock, Nick Kusznir, and Rob Strachan (all at that time at Keele), and to two anonymous reviewers who read the draft of the first edition and made many useful suggestions for its improvement. I am especially grateful to Rob Standley, then of City of London Polytechnic, for his meticulous checking of the original manuscript and for a host of valuable suggestions. Many of the original diagrams were drawn by Paula Haselock, whose willing and cheerful help made the task of writing the book much easier.

Finally I wish to make it clear that I have ignored many pieces of good advice in relation to both the first and second editions, usually because of my overriding desire to make the book as short as possible, and that any remaining deficiencies are entirely my own responsibility.